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Barbara Forrest

Change comes slowly to some parts of the country. Louisiana is a stark reminder of that.

It’s 2013, and state legislators continue to resist efforts to teach evolution in public schools. There was another showdown on the matter yesterday, with members of the Senate Education Committee voting 3-2 to table a bill that would have repealed creationist legislation in the state. Read more

Insanity, it has been said, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

In light of that, the state of Louisiana might want to get a mental health check-up. Legislators and some education officials there keep promoting creationism in public school science classes – and they keep getting busted on it. Read more

It looks like Texas is due for another round of fussing and fighting over creationism in public schools.

The state Board of Education continues to be dominated by Religious Right zealots who refuse to accept modern science and seek to teach religiously based concepts in biology classes. (They also reject accepted history. Remember, these are the people who hired “Christian nation” propagandist David Barton to help rewrite their social studies standards.) Read more

Every year at the Values Voter Summit in September, the Religious Right makes sure to put its young activists in the limelight. They serve as a reminder (and a warning) that the fundamentalist political agenda will be pushed for years to come.

Fortunately, advocates of church-state separation have our own youth activists ready to take them on. Baton Rouge, La., high school senior Zack Kopplin is a good example. Read more

As we feared, Religious Right activists are moving to undermine Louisiana’s public school science curriculum.

When Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law the “Science Education Act” in 2008, Americans United warned that it was merely another attempt for creationists to slip fundamentalist religion into biology classes. Read more

Members of the Livingston Parish School Board in Louisiana may be on the verge of making a huge mistake – one that could cost their community a lot of money.

During a recent meeting, several board members went off on a tangent about teaching creationism. During this public session, they openly discussed their desire to bring religion into the classroom. It was not a wise move. Read more